


Not That Easily

by innocent_until_proven_geeky



Series: The Clone Wars Season 7 [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Clone Wars, Fluff, Gen, Other, Requested, Season 7 Spoilers, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) Spoilers, alcohol mention, clone-centric, needle mention, the clones deserve more happiness, these particular clones are my di'kutla children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-07
Updated: 2020-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:07:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23049778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/innocent_until_proven_geeky/pseuds/innocent_until_proven_geeky
Summary: After Skako Minor, a few of the 501st take care of Echo.  He needs it.
Relationships: CT-21-0408 | Echo & CT-27-5555 | Fives (mentioned), CT-21-0408 | Echo & CT-5597 | Jesse, CT-21-0408 | Echo & CT-6116 | Kix, CT-21-0408 | Echo & CT-7567 | Rex, CT-21-0408 | Echo & Domino Squad (mentioned), CT-5597 | Jesse & CT-6116 | Kix, CT-5597 | Jesse & CT-7567 | Rex, CT-7567 | Rex & CT-6116 | Kix
Series: The Clone Wars Season 7 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1707868
Comments: 10
Kudos: 101





	Not That Easily

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lisianpeia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lisianpeia/gifts).



> Title from that one Andy Grammer song from Five Feet Apart. "Don't Give Up On Me" maybe? I don't know, songs are hard and it's 1:00 AM.
> 
> Enjoy a bit of fluff, once again requested by my friends over at The Clone Wars Centre discord server!

Echo had always been afraid of doctors. He remembered being little, on Kamino, with the longnecks poking and prodding, knowing in the back of his mind that if they found something wrong with him, that was that. And then again, the Separatist doctors who “fixed” him up--he didn’t think too hard about that. He couldn’t.

Rex, of course, cared more about such things as Echo’s __health__ and __well-being__ than his fear of doctors, and as soon as they were off Skako Minor with the Bad Batch and the General they were on their way to the nearest Republic medical facility.

Rex, to his credit, never left Echo’s side.

“How’re you holding up, __vod’ika__?” Rex asked after a stranger stuck Echo with a needle for the third time in as many hours.

Echo gave him a little lopsided smile. “Better than ever, Rex.” He knew Rex knew he was lying, but they were never very good at talking about feelings. The only people he could really do that with were Domino Squad, and Rex had already told him that even Fives, indestructible Fives, was gone.

“So you don’t want me to drag you off this rock?”

501st sarcasm. That was a language Echo spoke. “Oh, would never dream of it.”

“Too bad.” Rex shrugged and shook his head. “I was thinking of taking you, Jesse, and Kix to Seventy-Nine’s. Maybe a few of the newer guys too. Gotta beef you up a bit.”

Echo pretended to consider this, and could only barely suppress a laugh when his stomach growled loudly. “I don’t know what you mean, Captain.” He grinned. He could probably stand to get some bad food and good liquor from 79’s again.

Rex’s expression turned fond, maybe a little melancholy. “Don’t imagine the Seppies fed you much in that stasis chamber, huh?”

There was no humor in Echo’s laugh. “Technically speaking, they nourished me.”

“Technical nerf stew just isn’t the same as the real thing.”

This time, Echo’s laugh was bright and loud, the way Rex remembered it. He clapped his hand on his brother’s shoulder. “I think they’ll let us leave soon, as long as your weight’s the only thing they have a problem with. And as soon as we’re out of here I’ll have you fed properly.”

:::

Somehow, Rex had acquired civvies for Echo to wear to the cantina. The typical clone armor, fatigues, or dress greys didn’t fit him quite as well anymore, only serving to make his appearance more gaunt than it already was, and so he wore a 501st-blue shirt made of some natural fiber and slacks long enough to cover the metal legs, something Echo thought he might never truly get used to.

But the real shock was just how loud 79’s was. Everything had been so quiet for so long, except that skirmish on Skako, but at the time he had been high on adrenaline and the hormone had served to drown out the noise. Now, though? Now he was overloaded with the lights and the sounds and the smells.

Jesse threw a grey-clothed arm around Echo’s shoulders. “What’s going through that pretty little head of yours, __vod__?”

Echo forced out a laugh. “Aww,” he sighed, avoiding the question, “you called me pretty!”

“Yeah, well, you do look exactly like me.”

“Except I’m skinny, pale, have cybernetic implants, and don’t have a giant Republic cog tattooed across my face.”

Kix burst into laughter. “You’ll only encourage him!”

“How many did I miss?”

Rex and Kix looked at each other, calculating, and Jesse dropped his arm from around Echo’s shoulder to cross his arms, trying to look more indignant than he actually was. He was proud of his cog tattoos. They represented particularly important missions.

Finally, Kix said, “I think two more on his arm and one on his back.”

“Are you sure the one on his chest was before the Citadel?”

“You got one on your __chest__?” Echo exclaimed, at about the same moment he realized that Jesse’s plan all along had been to distract him from his overwhelm.

“After,” the other three said all at once, and they wore grins that would match perfectly to anyone else, but Echo grew up among a million brothers who looked exactly like him and he knew the way Jesse’s lips pulled back a little farther than anyone else’s, and the way Kix’s smiles were always just a little lopsided, and that Rex did everything by the book even when there wasn’t a book to go by and so his mouth was about as perfectly symmetrical as it could get even when he was beaming. He couldn’t help it: he guffawed.

After several minutes of hearty laughter, Rex finally settled them down with, “Alright, alright. Echo, what’s the first thing you want to eat?”

Echo didn’t think about it for longer than a second. “Do they still have that awful, greasy Besh-Leth-Trill sandwich?”

“Ha!” Jesse brought his hand down hard on the table. “How do they always manage to make the bread so soggy?”

“A secret of the trade, I’m sure.” Kix wasn’t even paying attention to his companions anymore, instead looking across the room at a green-skinned Twi’lek who had wiggled her fingers in their general direction.

“How did you end up the only one of us to like girls?” Jesse teased, reaching across the table to nudge his brother. “We’re here to fatten Echo up, remember?”

“There are better ways t--”

“We __know__ ,” Jesse and Rex groaned at the same time.

If Echo had to guess, this was Kix’s fifth time reminding them that this was one of the least healthy ways to get his weight back to what it should be. There was probably at least one lecture about body composition and physical therapy in there somewhere. He laughed. It had taken him a while to warm up to Kix the first time, with his hatred of doctors and medics, but Kix took no time at all to love each of his brothers.

“You worried about my health or your girl?” Echo teased.

“Why not both?” Kix waved to the Twi’lek as she drew near, but she walked right past their table and out the door. “Okay, fine. I’m worried about your health.”

Another round of hearty laughter.

:::

If Echo had to choose a brother he loved more than any other--well, even if he didn’t have to, it would be Fives. It would always be Fives. But of those __vode__ who were left, of the three who dragged him to 79’s that night and watched as he ate (and drank) himself sick, it might actually be Kix.

“Huh.”

“It’s not exactly reassuring to hear your medic use vocables,” Echo snarked.

“Eh, don’t worry, __vod__. You’re fine. In fact, you’re far more fine than you should be, considering everything you told me.” Kix stood in the corner of a medbay, almost as sophisticated as the room in the first medical facility after Skako, scrolling through numbers on a datapad. “You’re still dramatically underweight, especially when accounting for the added weight of the cybernetics--” leave it to Kix not to mince words “--but your levels are pretty close to normal. When you say they nourished you in that stasis chamber, you mean it.”

“I would be dead if they hadn’t,” Echo noted drily.

Kix muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, “Don’t remind me.” Then he straightened up. “I’m not technically a doctor, just a field medic, but if it were up to me I’d want you to start physical therapy to build up those muscles again, and eat more foods rich in things like iron and calcium. No more of those Seventy-Nine’s bantha burgers.”

“Ah, kriff,” Echo replied, voice flat. “I was really going to miss those.”

It only took about three seconds before one of them cracked, and then they were both laughing and Echo couldn’t think of anywhere he’d rather be, anyone he’d rather be with except maybe his batchers and he was getting closer every day to accepting that Fives really wasn’t around anymore. He said so.

“It’s good to be back, Kix.” His cheeks flushed a little. This was getting remarkably close to __talking about his feelings__ , and talking about his feelings was what he did with Fives.

“It better be,” Kix replied, having already moved on to other basic tests that needed to be done. “I’m afraid you’re stuck with us until further notice.” He chuckled. “The General isn’t going to give you up after all he went through to get you back.”

“But Rex will?” Echo joked.

“Rex doesn’t give anyone up without a fight.” Echo wondered if Kix even knew he said it, it was murmured so quietly. Still, the thought warmed Echo’s heart.

He wouldn’t give these guys up without a fight, either.

**Author's Note:**

> I know I didn't write a scene specific to Echo and Jesse but Jesse is neither Echo's captain nor his medic and the only thing I could think of was "I'm an ARC trooper and you're not" and Jesse would never rub that in Echo's face so here we are.


End file.
